Of Weakened Fortresses
by Melicious Intent
Summary: The Inquisition is disbanded, and Lavellan must face the consequences of Solas' actions alone... But not as alone as her lover-turned-enemy would believe, as he was soon to discover. A one-shot detailing the last night of intimacy the two lovers share before the coming war, which will pit them tragically against one another. (Art by me)


_**(Dedicated to my lovely friend, TyrnaHamroth. May you enjoy, my dear.)**_

The keep was a ruin in all but name, abandoned and left in the capable hands of what remained of her council. Armies no longer trained behind the walls, the flow of pilgrims cut off over the years, and only the ghosts of memories long gone haunted the empty halls.

She held the nub of her arm tenderly, running her thumb over it to soothe the phantom pains troubling her. They had awakened her again, her elven eyes adjusting to the black of her once stately quarters. Below her, the war room was locked tight, vacant now and sporting cobwebs from disuse. Their careful strategizing was no longer held there, but if she closed her eyes, she could still see her Commander hovering over the map, her Ambassador checking off reports from settlements, her Spymaster contemplating her scouts' next move, her glowing hand a promise of deliverance from the evils hounding them daily…

But that was all gone… Along with her Heart.

The soldiers had returned home to their children. The scouts hid in shadows, patiently awaiting new orders from their dead drops. Kingdoms and Empires were tentatively at peace with one another, the impending war a distant blip on the horizon. For now, the fighting was done…

All that awaited them now was to anticipate his next move…

She could almost see him if she strained long enough, though the past was becoming nothing more than a distant memory. Yet even still, his face remained permanently etched on her heart, an echo of torment as painful as the hand she no longer wielded to protect the world.

He stood not more than three metres away, cloaked in darkness and wearing that same bleak expression that had first shattered her whole world. _I distracted you from your duties,_ he had said. _It won't happen again…_ Little had he known that he was all she had thought about every day for nigh on three years. Worrying. Reeling. Agonising. Breaking. Breathing… _Yes, but still breathing…_

The black robes shifted as he moved toward her, though he halted in his steps, hesitation and despair written over the subtle lines of his face… And his blue eyes flashed like lightning for a moment before he closed them, turning to make for the stairs and leave without a word.

Slowly, her brows drew together as she sat up, one leg falling freely over the side of her bed. He caught the rustle of her coverlet and paused, not daring to glance back in the hopes that perhaps she was only stirring in her sleep.

Her heart was pounding within her, desperate to believe the sight before her, yet not foolish enough to wholly trust in it. Braving the reaction of his ghost, she swallowed, her mouth drying up like a summer drought on her tongue.

"Are you really here, or… am I dreaming…?"

She had only whispered, but the silence carried it like a scream to his pointed ears. His reaction was slow, fluid and tempered with a practised ease.

"…With each passing day, it grows more difficult to separate the two, my Heart…"

There was a chance she had imagined it all. Her eyes saw the rigidity in his shoulders, her ears heard the pained resignation in his cadence, but she'd dreamed this all before… or had she?

With quaking knees, she stood and pulled her dressing gown tight over her to fight the chill of her room. Every step toward him felt like an impossibility, though the distance was closing nonetheless. The stone beneath her feet was ice on her toes, and as she held her breath, she stopped just shy of the black robe, terrified that he would dissolve into nothingness at her gentle touch…

The cloth was warm, his arm beneath it solid, and her sudden intake of breath made her dizzy for the span of a few heartbeats. Lost in a sea of relief and turmoil, she watched as he turned to face her, the cleft of his chin and the fullness of his lips unhidden by his hood. With a shaking hand, she pushed the fabric free to expose his woeful eyes to her… and she couldn't fight the tears that had begun to well at last.

"I knew it was real," Lavellan breathed, emotion overwhelming her entirely. Moving into his strong arms, she could hold back the tears no more, and down they fell with the release of one ragged sigh. She clung to his robes, memories once faded assaulting her senses anew. He had promised never to forget her, and that he never did. "Oh, Solas…"

He cradled her head against his chest, and she listened to the rhythm of his life drum out a sombre beat in her pointed ear. "It was always real," his soft voice reminded her tenderly, the quality deeper than her memory recalled it ever being.

He had returned to her again, but for how long? What had he risked by coming here, into the arms of who by all rights he should consider his enemy? She had an ocean of questions, all breaking like waves in her throat, but all she could express was released through the tears streaming down her face, free to wander the bareness of her skin.

"I cannot stay long," Solas nearly grieved as the words left his throat painfully. "Not as I did last time, _vhenan…_ "

Her face contorted as she mourned his statement. In this room, they were lovers, two spirits joined in beauty and freedom, but out there in the cold world… No, she couldn't bring herself to even think it. How could she accept what was surely to come…? What would the battles bring, and what wedge would drive between them as the impending war raged on in earnest…?

He pulled back and placed his hands upon her narrow shoulders, his grip as firm as his tone as he looked down at her sternly. "I could have been _anyone_ , _lethallan_. A spy. A thief. An _assassin_ … Where are your men? Where've all your soldiers gone? Why is not one patrol making their rounds tonight?"

She stiffened her lip and met his hard gaze. "We've disbanded… On my orders."

"So _none_ remain?"

She would not tell him, however honest she wished things were between them. Though her love had not faltered, her trust had been broken, and Lavellan would let nothing of her strategy or their numbers against him slip.

" _Vhenan_ , you _must_ protect yourself. Especially from me," Solas pleaded, awash with only concern for her. "Reaching you was all too easy. Whether I had launched a full-scale invasion against you, or merely sent a small detachment, you might be dead now with no one to protect you."

She swallowed hard and subconsciously brought the stump of her arm to her chest, caressing it with a hand longingly. "I have ways of cheating death, _emma lath_ ," she whispered, glancing down at what should have been her glowing anchor. "…I do not die so easily."

He lowered a shaking hand to her forearm, running it down as if to find the hand he'd once worshipped like a priceless relic. Solas knew it had been severed in the realm beyond the eluvians. He'd trembled with shame when he had first touched the sight of the amputation in this very room months before. "…You are more resourceful than I gave you credit for," he agreed, his words breaking on a slight catch in his throat. "I never meant you harm, and yet… I will never forgive myself for what my mistakes have cost you, Lavellan…"

She forced him to raise his eyes to her own, shaking her head softly as she tried to free him of blame. "I forgive you, _vhenan_."

"You _really_ shouldn't. What I have done… What I will do…" He brushed the hair from her shoulders and rested his warm palm against her delicate neck. "There is no redemption for one such as me," he stressed to her, urging her to see reason and not take the hopeless path of salvation. "You _must not_ leave yourself vulnerable, to me or anyone else. It would tear me asunder, but if you intend to stand against me, I'll have no choice left but to –"

He couldn't utter what his heart protested with every beat of his life. And with that, she knew it was possible.

"… Please, do not have me choose," he begged, dying little by little at the prospect of losing her to his cause.

Lavellan shook her head and retreated a step back, defiant to the last. With final decision, she rolled her shoulders until the silk of her dressing gown dropped to the floor, exposing her every curve and scar to him fully.

His eyes travelled over her as he froze in place, clearly at a loss as he struggled to trust what his narrow eyes beheld standing before him.

"Then kill me, Dread Wolf," she bade him, holding her arms out to her sides in surrender. "Wash me in blood and rob me of breath forever. Here's your chance… I am yours for the taking."

Her gaze steeled as he again met her eyes in an open state of shock, his mind unable to voice his racing thoughts. She had given him her very soul long since. If she had to die for him, she would give her life, too, be it now or when the world was engulfed in the flames he had lit.

"I won't let you die alone… I _will_ save you from yourself," she believed down to her core, the tears flowing freely between them. "…Unless you slay me now."

Solas' fortress had been breached. She could see it in the turn of his brow, in the emptiness of the bleak notion of living on without the feel of her touch on his cheek, her breath on his neck, her trusting eyes boring into the essence of his spirit. He fought to breathe as he stared at her. " _Vhenan,_ you're _–_ "

" _Do it!_ " she cried out in dismay, begging him to end it now. She could face the demons, the wardens, the villains and vehemence of a dozen nation's armies, but the looming nightmare of facing the man she loved in miserable, helpless war was a horrifying nightmare she could not suffer.

He broke before her, no longer an unfeeling stone wall. Overwhelmed, her tragic lover stepped forward and scooped her into his arms in one fluid motion, cradling her naked body against him as he kissed her with all the power of a thousand years of loss and loneliness. "That is why I loved you," he breathed through his tears, brushing his full lips against hers. "Why I've always loved you…"

The bed was sacrosanct, a holy place where he had worshipped at her temple, being honest as a prayer with her in the only way he truly could. And he took her there to praise her anew, basking in the light of her spirit, joining with her in a purging of every last drop of desire left in his ancient bones.

For a time, there was only bliss, tossing away the bittersweet abandonment of old bruises and broken hearts, sleeping with the enemy as only they could do. His touch was like fire on her skin, stirring ashes that had gone cold with his distance. They were one, had ever been, would always be, and no matter how foolishly she relented in these moments they stole with one another, that would never change for her. In his arms, she felt as an immortal, just as he was, and as he moved within her with a secret love and a primal hunger, oblivion claimed her completely. The depth of their emotions washed over them, every cry they uttered speaking to years of yearning they had denied only to others, but never each other.

And as he lay with her in the warm aftermath, fighting for breath and weakened by unabashed lovemaking, she knew, and her soul died within her.

This would be the last time…

He knelt at her bedside not long after, pulling the soft coverlet over her shoulder as she stared blankly toward the stairs, laying on her side, her mind in denial at the realisation of the horrible truth she now faced. Planting a tender kiss on her forehead, Solas brushed the hair from her eyes, unable to conceal the true depths of his loss…

"Fortify your defences, my Heart _…_ If not for my sake, then for you and…"

A tear absorbed into her pillowcase, blinking another away. "Lower yours… Give up this war and stay with us…"

Closing his eyes, he lowered his head in defeat, the gravity of what they faced laying squarely on his shoulders. "I cannot do that, _vhenan…_ "

Lavellan's throat bobbed, and she cradled her lost arm, pulling up her knees. "…Then we will wait for you," she promised in the dark, "every night until you change your mind…"

He would never reconsider, she knew. But hope was alive yet, deep within.

"… _Ar lath, ma vhenan… ma da'len…_ "

And so he left by the stairs, never to return again, the door below shutting with cold finality behind him.

Breathing deeply, she closed her eyes and lowered her hand to the small bump low on her belly, touching the growing curve as another tear rolled down her face. Their unborn child gave a flutter, shifting in its innocent slumber to rest safe and warm inside.

" _Hamin, ma da'len,_ " she whispered soothingly as dreams beckoned her to the Fade, to the place of a father's greatest pride… " _Mamae_ is here for you _…_ "

Hope was alive yet…

Deep within…


End file.
